At the end of their Annual General Conference in April, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) announced the construction of 15 new temples, one of which will be built in Greenville.
That announcement “was shocking” to Travis Kerns, associational mission strategist for Three Rivers Baptist Association in northern Greenville County, since “there are not that many Mormons here.” Still, the construction of a Mormon temple should be of concern to South Carolina Baptists and other mainline Christian churches, said Kerns, who also teaches at North Greenville University and did his academic research and writing focusing on the LDS Church.
The closest temples currently are in Columbia, Atlanta, and Raleigh, and the new temple will be the second in South Carolina. Its construction will bring a large number of Latter-day Saint visitors to the area to perform necessary temple rites, and likely bring renewed interest in what Latter-day Saints believe and practice, Kerns said.
Three Rivers Association will begin offering general training events on Mormonism, what to expect when you speak to Mormon missionaries, and, most importantly, how to share Christ with Mormons, he added.
A Mormon temple differs from a Mormon meetinghouse, or sanctuary, noted Kerns, who just returned from a vision trip to Salt Lake City, where the LDS Church is headquartered.
A meetinghouse, typically, is a long, narrow building with a large room inside that has a seating capacity of 300 to 500 and smaller classrooms. Meetinghouses, which may have white steeples with no cross atop, are used weekly for small group study, corporate worship, and baptisms for living converts.
Temples, on the other hand, are used for three specific things, and even though they are bigger buildings do not have big open rooms inside, Kerns said. Instead, they are subdivided into smaller rooms. Some temples may have a statue of a golden angel, Moroni, with a trumpet atop a spire. The three uses of temples are for baptisms for the dead, “endowments,” and “sealings.”
“Latter-day Saints believe baptism to be necessary for salvation and believe a person may receive baptism by proxy after death,” he explained.
Endowments, also done for the living and the dead, are where Mormons learn about the earth’s origin, the Mormon plan of salvation, and the Garden of Eden, Kerns said. “They also learn about something called ‘signs and tokens,’ which, put into regular language, are handshakes and passwords for entrance into heaven,” he said.
Sealings, or Mormon wedding ceremonies, are also performed only at the temples, and these may be for both the living and the dead. “A bride and a groom are sealed together for ‘time and eternity,’” Kerns noted, “because Mormons believe marriage lasts into the afterlife.”
While guests may enter a meetinghouse, only temple-worthy Mormons may go into a temple. No visitors are allowed after the building is dedicated, Kerns said.
Why should South Carolina Baptists and other mainline denominations in the surrounding area be concerned about this new temple?
“One, because the Latter-day Saints church obviously sees a need for a temple here because they see their numbers potentially growing,” Kerns explained. “Two, it will bring more Latter-day Saints into the area, so there’ll be a bigger Latter-day Saint influence here.”
Beyond these two reasons is the curiosity factor when a new building is being constructed, which Kerns feels may make people more open to the teachings of Mormonism. “But, obviously, it’s also a great opportunity for us to be able to learn more about them and to share our faith with them as they come to town,” he added.
Although some beliefs of Latter-day Saints, which was founded in the 1820s based on the teachings of Joseph Smith, may sound similar in a few respects, Mormons differ from historical Christianity in several key doctrines. “They’re most assuredly not a Christian group,” Kerns maintained. “We use the same vocabulary but have different dictionaries.”
For instance, they have a different understanding of God. “They believe that God is an exalted man who still lives in a physical body, who grew up on another planet, had a mom and a dad, brothers and sisters. He did everything he was supposed to do as a good Mormon, and then inherited the earth as God of the earth,” Kerns said.
They also believe that Jesus is a created being. “He has not always existed,” Kerns noted. “They do not believe in the Trinity, and they believe in salvation by grace and by works.”
And, while Mormons do believe the Bible — though with significant interpretative differences — they also use other books of scripture, such as the Book of Mormon. “Their understanding of the Bible is severely skewed and based purely on Smith’s, and later leaders’, hermeneutic,” he said.
Greenville has nearly 75,000 residents, and South Carolina is home to nearly 46,000 Latter-day Saints in approximately 85 congregations, according to newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org. Plans for another temple were announced in 2023 for Charlotte, N.C.